


greetings from califournia

by stepanova



Category: LOONA (Korea Band)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, but also angst, inspired by baseball heejin, l a n g u a g e, lots of friends to lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-10-24 11:14:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20705066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stepanova/pseuds/stepanova
Summary: The BBC High girls' baseball team is one of the few high school girls' baseball teams in Northern California. The team consists of exactly nine girls and works like a well-oiled machine. Each girl has their own special part, but the lack of official teams gives them little to actually do.So when team manager Sooyoung decides to sign the girls up for a tournament, what can go wrong?





	1. one

The Son triplets were a force to be reckoned with, and different in their own ways, but they were, no doubt about it, the stars of the BBC High girls’ baseball team.

The three girls had been brought up in a baseball-obsessed family with no boys who’d decided that since they had no boys to force to play baseball, they’d force their girls to play baseball. And it ended up working out in the end, considering they _ were _some of the best girls in high school baseball.

The problem was that there weren’t many girls’ teams, and a lot of boys’ teams refused to play them, despite arguing still that “girls are so easy to beat”. But the BBC High team made do with what they had, despite having only nine girls on the team.

The youngest triplet, Hyejoo, was the team’s best infielder. She was, overall, a utility player, but her favorite position to play at was shortstop.

The one with the candy-colored hair, Choerry, had a hell of an arm, and could throw a hundred and fifty feet from center field to the catcher sometimes, and was great at clutch plays. The other outfielders, Park Chaewon and Im Yeojin, would never even try to take Choerry’s position. She was just that good.

And of course, he oldest of the triplets, Hyunjin, was the team’s designated catcher. She worked incredibly well with Jeon Heejin, the team’s star pitcher, and the two were a dynamic duo on the field, and off the field, they were best friends.

Hyejoo and Choerry were both very good at baseball, but Hyunjin was just absolutely amazing. She was a pro at not letting the ball get past her, and she was incredibly good at gunning out runners who tried to steal bases. Her throws were quick and accurate, and she was just extremely reliable in general. But Hyunjin was very humble, not letting her accomplishments surpass the team’s. She considered anything good she did during the games something the team as a whole did.

Off the field, these girls each had their own friend groups, both within and outside of the baseball team. Hyejoo was actually pretty shy, despite her confident approach playing baseball, and only really had one close friend: the left fielder Chaewon, although she was less close with the right fielder Yeojin.

Choerry was friends with the first baseman, Jiwoo, as well as the second baseman, Jungeun, and the third baseman, Jinsol. Sometimes she felt left out of the group who dubbed themselves “The 3 Js (and Choerry)”, and also felt weird sometimes considering the three were infielders and she wasn’t, although these concerns were dismissed by herself as nitpicky. When she didn’t hang out with the group, she’d hang out with the weird memey girl: Yeojin, who seemed to infiltrate all the friend groups with her friend Yeri, who didn't play baseball but was very funny.

And Hyunjin and Heejin were inseparable, much like Hyejoo and Chaewon. Hyunjin was kind of a memey dork, too, but not a loud, annoying one like Chaewon or Yeojin. Her jokes were mostly shared in private as opposed to in front of the whole class.

The triplets were all different in their own ways, but they approached baseball with the same mindset. Constantly adapt, attack the other team's weaknesses, and winning on the side would be nice.

-

“Alright team, listen up!”

Coach Ha Sooyoung blows her whistle incredibly loudly even though the girls are all gathered right there. They’re wearing their practice uniforms, consisting of baseball pants and athletic shirts of all different colors. They’re like a rainbow of teenage girls.

“Look, so you know how we normally just try and find a team that’ll actually play us?” she asks the team. The girls all nod.

“Well, I actually found us a girls’ baseball tournament to go to! It’ll require some travelling-”

_ “Ugh.” _the girls chorus in unison.

“But!” Sooyoung exclaims. “Everything is, so far, paid for by BBC High, so we’re NOT going to have to carpool with the moms! They’re getting us a real, legiteral bus.”

“Did you seriously just say ‘legiteral’?” Yeojin says incredulously. “Dude, I thought you were the cool one.”

Chaewon elbows Yeojin not-so-subtly. An ‘ow! what the fuck’ can be heard in the background.

“Well,” one of their coaches, Coach Jo Haseul says, “it’s air conditioned. But if you’re being too annoying, we can just ask for the non air conditioned bus-”

“I TAKE IT BACK.”

“Good!” Haseul beams.

“So we’re going to play some other teams like IOI High from Petaluma and JYP High-” explains the team’s second coach, Coach Vivian Wong, who goes by Vivi. 

_ “Ugh.” _the girls’ groans chorus again. JYP High’s girls’ baseball team was the best in their region, the richie riches from San Francisco, and the BBC High team had been beaten by them multiple times. They actually had 14 players, too, so they had an actual bullpen and bench, whereas the BBC High team would have to switch positions occasionally for pitching like in Little League. Everyone at BBC High had a secondary position they were relatively okay at, but BBC High was always at its strongest when everyone was in their main positions.

“But I think we can beat them!” Vivi exclaims. “We’ve practiced really hard and gotten really good, and I really do think we can do it! We just have to have confidence, okay?”

The team nods, although some are more half-hearted than others.

“It’s a legit tournament, too!” Haseul says excitedly. “With a winners’ bracket and everything! If we win, we can proceed to the girls’ baseball regionals!”

Sooyoung nods. “See, the difference between girls’ baseball and boys’ baseball is that there are a LOT less girls’ teams, so the winner of the competition-it’s called Girls’ Baseball NorCal Tournament-goes straight to Western Regionals. We basically skip the whole district and sectionals the boys have to do, because there are less girls’ teams, there are enough to just go straight to NorCal. It’s not separated into districts and sections because there aren’t enough teams to actually do that. Does that make sense?”

“Can we see the brackets?” Hyunjin asks.

Haseul lets out an excited squeal and pulls something out of her pocket: a piece of paper. She unfolds it and proudly shows the girls the bracket. “We can fill it out as we go!” she exclaims.

There are eight teams playing in all of Northern California, which Hyejoo finds kind of pathetic, and JYP High is one of them. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you’d think about it), JYP and BBC High are so far apart on the bracket to the point where they’d have to play against each other in the semifinals if they both made it that far. 

“So we’re going to play Lincoln High School from Hayward first. We have a few weeks to get prepared for this, but just know, the games are all gonna be in far away locations. Our first game’s gonna be in Sacramento.”

Groans echo throughout the group. This whole escapade has caused more annoyance than excitement.

“But! Sacramento has decided to be nice enough to let all the teams use their field on a Saturday, and we’re lucky because we have the 2 PM game and we don’t have to stay overnight or leave at 5 AM, like JYP High who has the 10 AM game.” Sooyoung says ‘JYP High’ with a little resentment in her voice.

“Ew.” Hyejoo shudders at the thought of a morning game.

“It’s a little unorthodox, but a girls’ baseball tournament in May is lucky to get one field, honestly.” Vivi says. “Most fields are more busy with boys’ baseball.”

“Ew.” Hyejoo shudders at the thought of boys’ baseball. The parents are always more dramatic, especially at Little League games.

“So! In order to study, we’re going to the boys’ baseball game tomorrow night! And I better not hear you guys groan in annoyance! We haven’t really been to a competitive high school baseball game, and we know the boys’ games are really competitive.” Haseul says cheerfully. “And we’ll pay for tickets, but not for your food.”

The girls cheer at the thought of not having to pay for their tickets, but some are dismayed at having to go to a baseball game the one night they don’t have practice.

“We don’t have to wear the uniforms, right?” the stylish and popular Jinsol asks.

Sooyoung laughs. “God, no.” she says. “Not gonna lie, outside of school, I wouldn’t be caught dead with you in those uniforms.”

“Sooyoung!” Haseul exclaims. “They are a lovely eden green and yellow-”

“Yeah, more like piss mixed with split pea soup.” Sooyoung mutters.

“At least they’re not pink,” the edgy Hyejoo says. Beside her, Chaewon nods like a bobblehead.

Vivi’s nostrils flare. “Pink is a wonderful color! My hair used to be pink, you know-”

“This is kind of beside the point!” Heejin interjects. She tends to mediate the coaches, despite being sixteen and them being (at least) twenty.

“Yes, yes, you're right,” Haseul says sullenly. “Anyways, we're done with announcements, so you girls are dismissed.” She puts out her hand and the girls stack theirs on top. “Jungeun, you lead.”

“BBC on me, BBC on three! One, two, three, BBC!” Jungeun loudly shouts the words and everyone echoes the final ‘BBC’, before their hands shoot up into the air.

-

Heejin, Chaewon, and Yeojin meet up with the Son triplets before the game the next day to grab an early dinner.

“Let’s be real, nobody wants to eat that snack bar shit,” is Hyunjin’s invitation, and the six are walking through the local shopping center going to the local Domino’s.

“Is Domino’s much better, though?” Choerry asks as they continue walking.

Hyunjin gives Choerry a look that honestly scares her. “Um, yes.” she says completely seriously, and Choerry nods slowly.

“Cool.” Choerry replies, slowly and quietly.

“We’re heeeeereeee!” Heejin announces grandly, stopping right in front of the Domino’s.

“Okay, gang, what’s the game plan?” Hyunjin asks, gathering the girls into a huddle. “What’s our main goal?”

“Make everybody else jealous of our food.” the rest of the girls, except for Choerry, who just looks confused, repeat robotically.

“Damn straight.” Hyunjin smirks. “Okay, so how many pizzas will that be? We can do one per girl, one for each of us to carry.”

“Are we going to eat all that pizza, though?” Chaewon asks naively.

“Oh Chae, you sweet summer child. Of course not. The goal is to make people jealous, and then feel the satisfaction of ‘can I have some pizza?’ from everyone else.” Hyunjin explains. “Also, we must get at least one Hawaiian pizza.”

“I love Hawaiian pizza!” Chaewon exclaims.

“Good for you.” Hyunjin says somewhat insincerely. “So Chaewon’s got Hawaiian, me and Heekkie got cheese-”

“Don’t call me Heekkie!”

“-Choerry, you got the combo one you like, Hyejoo, you get pepperoni, and Yeojin, you get meat lover’s. Got it? Alright, break!”

The group of six storm into the Domino’s and face a worker who looks barely their age: a pimply blonde boy.

“Alright, so, we need two cheese, one pepperoni, one meat lover’s, one Hawaiian, and one of those combo ones.” Hyunjin orders, flanked by the tiny Chaewon and non-threatening, embarrassed looking Choerry.

The boy looks stunned but nods stiffly. “Uh, what size?”

“Medium for all.” Heejin interjects, so they don’t go broke. 

“That’s gonna be $56.23.” the pimply boy says monotonely. 

The girls all fork up their respective ten dollars.

“Who keeps the change?” Heejin asks.

“Me, bitch.” is Yeojin’s response. She is in the corner trying to balance one of those plastic waiting chairs on her head.

“Um, I don’t think you’re supposed to do that with the chair-” the pimply boy says, kind of pathetically.

“Do I look like I care?” Yeojin barks back.

“Yeojin. Drop the chair.” Heejin says, authoratively. Yeojin drops the chair.

“I keep the change because it was my idea.” Hyunjin says. Nobody argues with that. The pimply boy gives Hyunjin the change and she proudly pockets it.

“Okay, your pizzas will take approximately 40 minutes.” the pimply boy says.

“Great.” Hyejoo says sarcastically.

They all leave, and Chaewon says, very loudly, as she exits, “Hey Siri! Set a timer for 40 minutes!”

The pimply boy groans in annoyance, before going on his phone and playing a game of Fortnite.

Exactly 40 minutes later, the girls return, loud and boisterous.

“Heyooooo!” Yeojin greets. “Is our pizza ready?”

The boy nods and goes around, carrying six pizzas, with incredible strength considering the boxes stack up almost to his nose, before placing them down. The girls inspect the pizzas and each take their own before nodding a goodbye to the boy.

“Goodbye, fellow soldier.” Chaewon says kindly before exiting the store.

They caravan in Heejin’s mom’s minivan (Heejin is the only one who has a license) and drive to the high school, parking in the parking lot, and meeting up with the rest of the girls’ team outside of the gym.

“We brought pizza!” Choerry proclaims.

“Damnnnn, Coach Sooyoung!” Yeojin crows at one of their coaches, who is casually yet fashionably dressed and wearing a leather jacket. “You really said fuck all y’all to our clothing choices, huh?”

“Shut up.” Sooyoung mutters, suddenly embarrassed. She doesn’t correct their language, because they all know she swears too.

“Um, shall we go in?” Vivi says. The team agrees and they all go up to the ticket booth. 

“Tickets are $5, right?” Haseul asks when the team crowds around the ticket booth. “Okay, cool. There’s twelve of us, so…” She pulls a $50 out of her wallet. “Um, do you have change for a $20? I only have those…”

“Yeah.” the bored ticket booth runner says.

“Okay, cool.” Haseul repeats, and pulls the twenty out. She hands the bills to the ticket booth runner who gives her a $10 in return and waves the twelve in.

They find their seats somewhere in the bleachers. It’s pretty dead; high school baseball games aren’t nearly as popular as football games. There aren’t as many people as Hyunjin hoped, not as many people for her to flex her pizza on. It’s also thirty minutes before the game, so the girls and a few parents are the only ones there.

A few girlfriends and supportive friends arrive, but otherwise not that many people actually come to the game, and the game starts.

BBC High didn’t have a notoriously good boys’ team, and Hyunjin was already very annoyed with their play quality. They were slow and the pitcher didn’t have control of the ball at all. She turns to her right and says to Heejin, quite loudly, “Dude, this pitcher _ sucks. _You could pitch way better than him.”

The girl in front of the two of them whips her head around. “That’s my _ boyfriend. _” she says angrily.

Hyunjin shrugs. “Still sucks.” 

The girl doesn’t have a response, evidently agreeing, and turns back around.

“You’re a dick,” Heejin tells Hyunjin.

Hyunjin shrugs again. “I just speak the truth.” she says sagely.

The team ends up leaving the baseball game with three pizzas left, after BBC High loses 15-6. Most of the girlfriends and supportive friends had left during the fourth inning when the visiting team gained 5 runs off of many errors, but the girls all stayed, watching, analyzing.

They walk off as a team, and a familiar, annoying voice fills Hyunjin’s ears.

“Yo Jeon! Heejin!”

Heejin turns around. “What is it, Hansol.”

“Go out with me!”

Heejin rolls her eyes. “Fuck off.” she responds, and flips him off for good measure. Because the 'fuck off' clearly doesn't get Hansol to fuck off.

“You can’t resist me!” Hansol says far too confidently, making himself look even more like an idiot.

“I am right now.” Heejin says flatly, and she turns back around, running to catch back up to Hyunjin. “God, he’s such a tool. I swear, just leave me alone. I’m literally gay.”

“Big mood.” Hyunjin says, uncharacteristically too nervous to say anything else.

In the front of the group, Yeojin is being a clown.

“Hey, Coach Sooyoung,” Yeojin says. “I thought you said at practice the boys’ games were really competitive.”

“Yeojin, shut up.” Sooyoung says, annoyed. Yeojin cackles loudly.

“You can say it, you know.” Chaewon giggles. “You can just say they suck.”

“I plead the fifth.” Sooyoung replies, ever so diplomatically.

Chaewon and Yeojin groan. Hyejoo smiles softly next to her best friend.

The team huddles one last team before they each leave to go to their own houses.

“Alright, team, listen up. We’ve got exactly two weeks and three days before our game against Lincoln High School, and we’re going to practice hella-sorry, _hecka_-hard. We’re going to kick their a-words, alright?” Haseul says, determined. “We want to win, right?”

“Yeah!” the team choruses, used to Haseul's very fifth grade censoring.

“Alright, BBC on me, BBC on three-” Vivi starts.

“Not in public!” Yeojin groans, but she’s outnumbered, and the girls cheer because being sappy seems fitting right now.

“One, two, three, BBC!” the team choruses.

_"The girls team, not these losers!"_


	2. two

_ Two weeks and three days later… _

The BBC High girls’ baseball team stands outside the team bus, loading their baseball bags into the lower compartment.

“Hurry up, Jinsol,” Jungeun complains. “You’re taking for_ ever _.”

“I have to make sure my stuff doesn’t get damaged!” Jinsol responds. She gestures towards the haphazardly tossed in bat bags. “Am I supposed to trust them?”

“The bags?” Jungeun says incredulously. “Do you think they’re going to attack your bag?”

“You never know,” Jinsol says ominously.

“Just put the fucking bag in, Jinsol,” Yeojin says from behind them.

Jinsol huffs and attempts to arch her eyebrows poutingly, but Jungeun doesn’t fall for it. She never falls for it. It annoys Jinsol very much.

Eventually all the girls get their bags in the compartment and are seated while the bus drives on the highway.

“Hey, Coach Haseul!” Yeojin yells out. “Do we get walkup songs?”

Sooyoung answers instead of Haseul, who’s already remarkably asleep next to Vivi. “What kind of dumbass question is that?” she says very kindly.

Yeojin doesn’t look wounded at all. “So is that a yes or a no?”

“It’s a what the fuck do you think?”

“You’re so mean to me, Coach Sooyounggggg…..” Yeojin trails off. She attempts to arch her eyebrows and pout like Jinsol is known to do, but it is absolutely awful looking. It makes her look more like a demon than a pouting teenager.

“Yeojin, you look like you’re about to murder someone.”

“Yeah, murder someone with my fire rap skills-” Yeojin attempts, but is interrupted by a loud, high pitched laugh from Chaewon.

“Ha! As if!” Chaewon stays, still giggling.

“Oh, do you want to go?” Yeojin says. “Square up!”

“We are _ not _squaring up!” Vivi exclaims from her seat in the front, and the two girls back off. Nobody wants to defy Coach Vivi.

Chaewon sits next to Hyejoo. They’re very competitively playing Mario Kart on Hyejoo’s Nintendo Switch. You can occasionally hear a yell of anger when one of them decides to employ the deadly blue shell on the other.

“FUCK!”

Choerry rolls her eyes good-naturedly hearing her triplet’s angry yells.

“Language,” Vivi says lazily, evidently already tired. But nobody listens to her.

“It’s a two hour bus ride, Grandma, not a ten hour flight,” Yeojin says rudely.

“Yeojin!” Choerry exclaims, staring in shock at the girl next to her. “That’s so rude!”

Yeojin shrugs but concedes. “I’m sorry, Coach Vivi.” she says.

“I appreciate that, Yeojin.” Vivi says, amusement evident in her voice.

“It’s Yeojo Siwa, actually.” Chaewon helpfully pipes up, but it is immediately followed by a loud “WHAT THE _ FUCK _, HYEJOO?”

Choerry turns her head and sees her sister’s triangle-shaped pouty mouth perked up in a smirk.

“I win.” Hyejoo says quietly but proudly. Choerry turns her head back around in case her sister sees her watching her.

“ARGHHHH!” Chaewon screams.

Choerry sees Coach Haseul twitch and cover her ears.

“Why did I sign up for this,” Jungeun says from in front of Choerry. Next to her, Jinsol is wearing headphones and is passionately jamming out to the High School Musical 2 soundtrack.

“I’M NOT! GONNA STOP! NOT GONNA STOP TILL I GET MY SHOT!” she whisper-sings.

“We been knew, Troy Bolton,” Jiwoo says brightly from in front of Jinsol. Choerry thinks Jiwoo is trying to be sarcastic, but she has no idea. Jiwoo’s voice is always so happy Choerry’s unable to decipher how the girl with the strawberry-not-blonde hair really feels.

Jiwoo sits next to Coach Sooyoung, and is the only one who regularly talks to her coach outside of baseball. Sooyoung isn’t that much older than the seventeen-year-old Jiwoo, so they are actually friends. When Sooyoung posts pictures on Instagram, Jiwoo regularly comments on them like a stan account with various versions of “OMG QUEEN” and “SKDFJLSJFKSLFJDS OKAY I SEE YOU” and a lot of emojis. Jiwoo acts silly and dumb when talking to people her age but she’s just naturally better at talking to adults. Yerim assumes Jiwoo’s SJKDJFSLKDFJSKDFSes just translate better with millennials.

-

The rest of the trip to Sacramento isn’t nearly as exciting as the first twenty or so minutes, and the BBC High girls’ baseball team are all various levels of energized. 

But the field complex is more amazing than any field any of these girls have played on.

There are eight huge fields and two (2) snack bars, but these snack bars aren’t just normal, shitty snack bars run by bribed teenagers. No, these snack bars are Whole. Ass. Buildings. With actual cooking utensils that aren’t just microwaves.

Typical to their character, Haseul and Vivi allow themselves to be astonished. They knew there’d be a lot of fields and a lot of tournaments going on at the same time, but they didn’t know there’d be _ this _many fields.

Jiwoo and Jinsol are various levels of not-really-caffeinated, Jungeun seems really exhausted but she’s just annoyed at the peppy Jiwoo and Jinsol, Heejin, Hyunjin and Hyejoo are all completely game-faced, Chaewon and Yerim are staring at the big field complex in shock, and Yeojin is attempting to terrorize other teams. The only problem is that there is a boy’s tournament going on at the same time, and Yeojin’s taken it upon herself to harass the boys and call them loser heteros.

“Stop following me!” one of the boys begs, to no avail.

“Please, sir, I just want to know what shade your uniform is!” Yeojin says, in an attempt at an Oliver Twist impression.

“It’s blue!” the boy yells in response while his teammates laugh at him. Hyunjin decides it’s time to rescue the boy from Yeojin.

“BUT WHAT SHADE-MMPH!”

“So sorry,” Hyunjin drawls sarcastically, clamping one hand over Yeojin’s mouth and the other one around her arm. She steers Yeojin around like a toddler and walks her back to the rest of BBC High.

“Listen Yeojin, we gots to be professional,” Chaewon says, her head bobbing up and down like a bobblehead. “Blue steel these bitches.”

“Are you high,” Sooyoung asks, not unkindly. “Because I think that’s against the rules to play in this tournament.”

“No ma’am Coach Sooyoung,” Chaewon babbles.

"Great. Thanks." Sooyoung replies, clearly not convinced.

Yeojin opens her mouth to say something before promptly shutting it and looking like a deer in the headlights.

"Guys." she hisses with clenched teeth. "It's JYP High."

The chatter dies down. The girls all look in the direction of their arch-nemesis, all happy expressions gone and game faced.

-

"Sunmi." Sooyoung says coolly.

"Sooyoung." Sunmi, the coach and acting manager of JYP High due to the frequent absence of Park Jinyoung, replies.

"Ryujin." Hyunjin bites out, clearly less composed than her coach.

"Hyunjin." Ryujin replies, a fake smile wide on her face.

"Oh my God, Tzuyu!" Choerry exclaims.

"Oh my God, Choerry!" Tzuyu exclaims back. She runs over, breaking the pristine formation of JYP High's girls' baseball team, and squeezes Choerry in a tight hug. "Aaaaah I haven't seen you in forever! How's it going?"

"Good!" Choerry exclaims happily. "Did you guys win?"

Before Tzuyu can answer, another girl, Nayeon cuts in. "Of course." she says flatly. "Ten-nothing."

"Oh, I'm shocked." Heejin says under her breath. Nayeon, unfortunately, hears and shoots her a death glare.

"Well," another girl, Lia, says, "Good luck in your game. Hope we get to play against you."

Fake smiles are exchanged from everyone except Choerry and Tzuyu, and the two baseball teams make their way in opposite directions.

"We are _so _kicking their asses." Hyunjin mutters as the team walks towards the field they're set to play on.

"We are _so _kicking their asses." Nayeon announces to the JYP High team as they pile back in their bus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is so short i am so so sorry

**Author's Note:**

> baseball. heejin. thank you very much.


End file.
